Ukraine Must Apply For EU Membership by 2020, Otherwise Face 25-Year Wait

Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin said that the Ukraine's application for membership in the EU in 2020 is not bravado.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Ukraine must make it's membership application to the European Union by 2020, otherwise the process could take 25 years, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin said on Saturyday.

Current Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said in April that his country plans to implement the Association Agreement with the European Union and meet the requirements to apply for membership to the bloc within 5 years.

"The application for membership in the EU in 2020 is not bravado. If we do not do it in five [years], we will not be able to do it in 25. And then a long consideration [follows]," Klimkin said as quoted by the Evropeiska Pravda.

Ukraine's relations with the European Union were a major trigger for February 2014 protests in the capital of Kiev that led to the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych.

The so-called Maidan demonstrations broke out soon after Yanukovych opted out of signing a Union Association Agreement with the European Union.

The new Ukrainian government signed and ratified the agreement last year, committing to adopt a wide range of economic, judicial and financial reforms, among others, under a deal with Brussels.

President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz earlier this month said it is "incredibly" difficult to say when Ukraine will be in a position to join the European Union and recommended Kiev focus on current problems rather than its EU membership prospects.